In reading the Second Amendment, I find it easy to understand. I’m not a scholar or of legal background, but it is pretty simple to me:
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
There are two parts to the amendment. The first part presents most liberals, RINOs and elites heartburn about, the “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” There was no standing army when we were in the War of Independence against England. Think about this — really think about this — the most powerful army in the world, the British, against common citizens of the colonies, shopkeepers, farmers, people of immense wealth and indentured servants. Whoever volunteered to pick up a weapon, usually a rifle, to defend the homeland against the invading British.
Defeat after defeat, George Washington and volunteers persevered, and defeats slowly turned into victories. The common man kicked the hell out of the most powerful army in the world! Most weapons were smooth bore muskets, a few were rifled barrel muskets domestically produced, which provided a more accurate shooting rifle. A militia is a conglomeration of people with weapons dedicated to a single purpose, to defend the homeland against invaders or a tyrannical government.
The second part of the amendment “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This is the real kicker, because most people wishing for strict gun control hate that part of the Second Amendment.
I viewed a Facebook post recently that summed it up perfectly:
“The 2nd Amendment does not apply to semi-auto rifles, nor does it apply to bolt action rifles, pistols, or revolvers.
“The 2nd Amendment RESTRICTS GOVERNMENT.”
The technology of the firearm is irrelevant. The restrictions on government remain the same, regardless of the firearm. The Second Amendment was not written to grant permission for citizens to own and bear firearms. It forbids government interference in the right to keep and bear arms, period. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
So the fight goes on over gun rights. The recent killings in the news are horrible. But no laws will stop the killing by those willing to do evil. Whether by machete, vehicle, hammer, or firearm, evil is evil. You don’t point to an inanimate object and say that is the cause of the killing. It is just the instrument used in the act of killing.
The real problem is the person doing the killing, and when and until we address that and the motivational evil involved, the killings will continue. Laws are irrelevant. Look at Chicago —firearm murders every day and guns aren’t allowed by law in Chicago. Either the bad guys can’t read or they don’t care. I vote for the latter.
The rotting of America from within continues…
Ranger Rick is right, the type of firearm is irrelevant. In legal enactments, the statements are in descending order of importance, thus “A well regulated militia being necessary.” is the overarching issue. Any militia that is unregulated is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled that applies to an individual as well as a group, therefore, An unregulated individual with a firearm can be regulated no matter whether it is a single shot musket or an AK47. Ooops ! that is opposite conclusion to the one Ranger Rick makes. His conclusion seems to be that individuals right to bear arms cannot be infringed, therefore individuals can possess atomic bombs.
I disagree that legal enactments are framed in descending order of importance. All terms and conditions included in all legal enactments are supposed to have equal legal weight and bearing relative to the right of their enforcement.
It is unfortunate that the fallible human leadership who wrote the founding documents of this country did not define their terms with more helpful specificity, as even now continues to be true with many needlessly ambiguous laws we have today. They were a lot who relied on common sense, reason and rationality to accompany the terms they selected. That was a flaw. This room for latitude in interpretation by divergent interests therefore usually lends itself to endless debates and mounting social anger, including needless imposed infringements on the rights intended to be protected.
Regardless of how one interprets the terms “well regulated” and “militia” in the first part of the 2nd amendment there is far less room for honest debate in the concluding sweeping statement that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is not to be infringed. It is true that even though the word “arms” can be interpreted by some to mean “any weapon that can be used to do bodily damage to another” without exception, the writers of the amendment must be forgiven for not envisioning that “arms” could one day possibly be viewed as including weapons of instant and unknowing mass destruction such as an IUD, a cruise missile, an atomic bomb or drone strike. Relative to the freedom of speech they also couldn’t and didn’t envision an electronic internet and smart phones where one can anonymously slander and destroy the reputation of another or spread a huge lie around the world in an instant.
So while it’s certainly true that no right and freedom can long endure without rational restrictions on its obviously absurd and widely-destructive applications against unprotected innocents, the fact that today a single bullet can be fired every time one pulls the trigger of a hand-gun or rifle, instead of stopping each time to hand-load a muzzle between shots, cannot possibly be deemed to be an absurd application of the word “arms” by any rational and reasonable person. Any argument with this thought?